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Posted by Hamburgler
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Sep 20, 2008 at 9:02 am

A man walks up to a bank, in a busy store, in the middle of the day, mentions no weapon, askes for money, and the teller gives it to him?
That does not sound like a robbery it sounds like christmas. No wonder bank robbers are lining up in Pleasanton.

Posted by MainStreetDiva
a resident of Vintage Hills Elementary School
on Sep 20, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Way back in the dark ages when I worked as a teller, we were all trained to just hand over the money if someone came to the window and made threats. At the time, we were told it was to reduce the chance that anyone inside the bank would get hurt.

When one of our branches was later robbed at gunpoint (not my branch!), one manager tried to wrestle one the thugs to the ground. After the police arrived and took everyone's statements, that manager was fired for putting everyone's lives at risk.

Posted by frank
a resident of Pleasanton Heights
on Sep 20, 2008 at 9:22 pm

Why would the rules change? And what does Hamburgler expect the rules to be? Got a better suggestion? Does he/she think that this type of robbery is something new and tellers are not trained what to do in this situation in nearly every bank across our nation?

Universally, they hand over the money and rarely does the perp goes bananas and kills someone. The rules work!

Posted by Qwerty
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Sep 21, 2008 at 5:59 pm

I like hamburglers comment: "that does not sound like a robbery, that sounds like Christmas". It reminds me of a part in one of Steve Martin's movies where people are lined up to get money from the ATM and the robbers are lined up next to them to steal the cash as soon as it comes out.

While I understand the bank's interest in avoid confrontations that could lead to violance (possibly with weapons), what's to prevent robbers from continuing to do this sort of thing? Sure, there are cameras, but that obviously didn't stop this guy. Wouldn't this lack of response be tempting for other would-be-robbers to take advantage of? They probably know the rules (that the tellers will hand over money and not fight) so like hamburger said, it's Christmas!

Posted by Doo Doo
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Sep 22, 2008 at 8:04 am

"sounds like Christmas" ??? Hilarious..... BUT... but, what if it was your daughter working the counter? What if (the teller) was terrified by the bank robber. What if her whole life changed in that moment. What if the innocent tellers in Pleasanton don't appreciate your jokes? What if...
Bank robbery is a serious crime and the tellers did the right thing..... you people are unpalatable....

Posted by chris
a resident of Amberwood/Wood Meadows
on Sep 22, 2008 at 8:51 am

I can't believe that this happened at Safeway, I am there all the time, but I hate to say this but look who runs our banks these days...Does anyone see grownups at the banks anymore? It is kids, kids that at times don't even bother to cover up, are rude, smack their gum in your face and I would not be surprised if there are inside jobs going on.

Posted by Mimi
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Sep 22, 2008 at 2:52 pm

I'm just wondering, don't the banks have any kind of silencius alarm, I used to work in a Gas Station, thanks God nobody tried to assault the Station but there we had a botton underneat the Register in case som one comes and tried to do somenthing was very easy to push and robbers cann't notice that the Police was coming.

Posted by Pro-Law
a resident of another community
on Sep 29, 2008 at 1:27 pm

I'm just wondering, don't the banks have any kind of silencius alarm, I used to work in a Gas Station, thanks God nobody tried to assault the Station but there we had a botton underneat the Register in case som one comes and tried to do somenthing was very easy to push and robbers cann't notice that the Police was coming.
Posted by Mimi, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Sep 22, 2008 at 2:52 pm

I'm sure they do, but do you REALLY want the police to show up while the robbery is in progress in a busy Safeway? What happens when this guy has a gun, you are in check stand number 7 buying your dinner and a shootout goes down with police.